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Hands-On Learning

Though we have one of the largest, most popular departments at Augustana, our classes are small and hands-on. Introductory courses have only 20 to 25 students, while seminars are capped at 15 and may have as few as ten students. All of our course offerings emphasize small group work, feedback and the process of writing.

Our faculty members bring creativity to the classroom. Whether participating in a mock trial of Hamlet, throwing a birthday party for John Milton, or examining Civil War artifacts while reading the poetry of Walt Whitman, our students interact with the literature they study far beyond simply casting their eyes over a page.

Our writing classes, all of which follow a workshop format, guarantee that your work will be read and discussed by an eager and helpful audience – an audience that often includes exciting guest writers like Tim O’Brien, Linda Hasselstrom, John Rezmerski, Richard Jones, Jim Reese and others. You can then share your work with a larger audience through the student literary journal, Venture, and the online magazine Expressions.

Our classes in layout and design use state-of-the-art desktop publishing programs; and in photojournalism, students capture images of Sioux Falls and Augustana on their digital cameras. In advanced journalism classes, students cover more than just campus issues. They interview participants and commentators around Sioux Falls on major political and social issues while covering the police, school board, city council and more. Most importantly, journalism majors gain on-campus experience by working for the student newspaper, The Mirror, and the yearbook, The Edda.

The skills you gain from a major like English or journalism are not just how to write well and analyze, but to approach problems in a different way than the average person and give out new ideas.